Roadtrip Playlist
Emma Sheppard
Track 1: “Jerusalema” by Master KG
In the early days of the pandemic, when I was only leaving my house every three days, I would put on this song and spread my armsout and be grateful noone was around to see me, even though I so desperately wished people were around to see me, and I’d walk alone in a park because sometimes we need to feel sun on our face to remember who we are and so as I climb into a rental car for the first leg, of the first roadtrip, which I planned without considering that driving makes me nervous, I put on this song to remember who I am, with the sun on my face and my hands tightly wrapped around the steering wheel as I slowly find the road.
Track 2: “As Cool As I Am” by Dar Williams
It occurs to me only now that all the songs that live deepest within me make me want to spread my arms out and hope no one is around to see me. Day three of driving and my grip has loosened, but let’s not go crazy. As I settle into the views, as I settle into being alone in the car, I am thirteen again, and I am who I once was, when I was most comfortable alone in my room, though also I was never comfortable alone in my room, in my thoughts, in my body, but once in a while I would feel the sun on my face as this song played from a stage and I understood myself as fully home in myself, in a crowd or not. And it’s always a returning, there’s a thousand ways to return.
Track 3: “Country Roads” by John Denver
I stop to get coffee on day 5 and retitle the playlist “Nostalgia Trip” even though no one will see the name of a playlist and I already know what this is. I am forty kilometres away from a cabin in the woods that was my home away from home, until I grew up and found new homes and homes away, and homes away from that. And I shouldn’t play with fire by playing songs I know will make me cry, and I should be a better poet than to be this on the nose, but I do anyway, and I am anyway. And I let these first notes of these first songs, seep into me as I wind my way down the most familiar of paths.
Track 4: “Diamonds on the Soles of My Shoes” by Paul Simon
When we were kids, my father would drive us to stables because the thing he wanted most was for us to fall in love with horses, and my mother would prefer we had walked through a small town together, because the thing she wanted most was to keep us all safe, and pavement beneath our feet was more secure than hoisting us onto the top of animals, and as he drove he sang along to the Graceland album and drummed his ringed fingers against the steering wheel. They are not here, and I am drumming my ringed fingers against the steering wheel as I drive myself to a small town, because I have grown to have both of them within me.
Track 5: “Seasons of Love” from Rent
It is the last day, and I have a long road in front of me, as I say goodbye to the memories. I have finally learned how to speed, as I guide myself back along open road, as I let the last week seep into me, and fold itself into every part of me. I belt along with showtunes and am every version of myself–I am the child in the backseat and the thirteen year old alone in their room and the woman leaving their apartment for the first time in days to remember what it feels like to have sun on their face, and I am the person who left and the one who gets to return and the one with the road outstretched out in front of them, who knows when to press down a little more on the gas and when to ease up and how to get there.
